Search results for "Stratosphere"
showing 10 items of 112 documents
Widespread persistent polar stratospheric ice clouds in the Arctic
2016
Abstract. Despite a general decline in ozone depleting substances in the stratosphere due to the multi-national commitment to substantially reduce the emissions of their precursors, the magnitude of Arctic polar ozone loss has not decreased in recent years. Thus new observations at cold conditions can help to enhance our knowledge of polar stratospheric cloud (PSC) formation and life cycle which is of relevance for Arctic ozone loss. In the unique winter 2015/16, cold and persistent areas with temperatures below the ice frost point Tice developed in the Arctic stratosphere, caused by reduced perturbations of the polar vortex through planetary waves. Due to these extreme conditions, unpreced…
Small-scale mixing processes enhancing troposphere-to-stratosphere transport by pyro-cumulonimbus storms
2007
Abstract. Deep convection induced by large forest fires is an efficient mechanism for transport of aerosol particles and trace gases into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UT/LS). For many pyro-cumulonimbus clouds (pyroCbs) as well as other cases of severe convection without fire forcing, radiometric observations of cloud tops in the thermal infrared (IR) reveal characteristic structures, featuring a region of relatively high brightness temperatures (warm center) surrounded by a U-shaped region of low brightness temperatures. We performed a numerical simulation of a specific case study of pyroCb using a non-hydrostatic cloud resolving model with a two-moment cloud microphysics p…
Stratosphere–Troposphere Exchange and Its Relation to Potential Vorticity Streamers and Cutoffs near the Extratropical Tropopause
2007
Abstract Two distinct dynamical processes near the dynamical tropopause (2-PVU surface) and their relation are discussed in this study: stratosphere–troposphere exchange (STE) and the formation of distinct potential vorticity (PV) structures in the form of stratospheric and tropospheric streamers and cutoffs on isentropic surfaces. Two previously compiled climatologies based upon the 15-yr European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Re-Analysis (ERA-15) dataset (from 1979 to 1993) are used to establish and quantify the link between STE and these PV structures. An event-based analysis reveals a strong relation between the two processes. For instance, on isentropes below 320 K, 30%–50%…
Evidence for heterogeneous chlorine activation in the tropical UTLS
2011
Airborne in-situ observations of ClO in the tropics were made during the TROCCINOX (Aracatuba, Brazil, February 2005) and SCOUT-O<sub>3</sub> (Darwin, Australia, November/December 2005) field campaigns. While during most flights significant amounts of ClO (≈10–20 parts per trillion, ppt) were present only in aged stratospheric air, instances of enhanced ClO mixing ratios of up to 40 ppt – significantly exceeding those expected from gas phase chemistry – were observed in air masses of a more tropospheric character. Most of these observations are associated with low temperatures or with the presence of cirrus clouds (often both), suggesting that cirrus ice particles and/or liquid …
Stratosphere-troposphere exchange in the vicinity of a tropopause fold
2016
Abstract. Transport of air masses from the stratosphere to the troposphere along tropopause folds can lead to peaked ozone concentrations at ground level and hereby influence the long-term trend of tropospheric ozone. To improve the understanding of responsible processes and preferred regions of exchange, transient and reversible exchange processes in the vicinity of a tropopause fold are analysed on the basis of a case study. The global and regional atmospheric chemistry model system MECO(n), which couples the limited-area atmospheric chemistry and climate model COSMO-CLM/MESSy to the global model ECHAM5/MESSy for Atmospheric Chemistry (EMAC) is applied. Using similar process parametrisati…
A new radiation infrastructure for the Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy, based on version 2.51)
2016
Abstract. The Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy) provides an interface to couple submodels to a basemodel via a highly flexible data management facility (Jöckel et al., 2010). In the present paper we present the four new radiation related submodels RAD, AEROPT, CLOUDOPT and ORBIT. The submodel RAD (with shortwave radiation scheme RAD_FUBRAD) simulates the radiative transfer, the submodel AEROPT calculates the aerosol optical properties, the submodel CLOUDOPT calculates the cloud optical properties, and the submodel ORBIT is responsible for Earth orbit calculations. These submodels are coupled via the standard MESSy infrastructure and are largely based on the original radiation scheme of …
Highly resolved observations of trace gases in the lowermost stratosphere and upper troposphere from the Spurt project: an overview
2005
International audience; During SPURT (Spurenstofftransport in der Tropopausenregion, trace gas transport in the tropopause region) we performed measurements of a wide range of trace gases with different lifetimes and sink/source characteristics in the northern hemispheric upper troposphere (UT) and lowermost stratosphere (LMS). A large number of in-situ instruments were deployed on board a Learjet 35A, flying at altitudes up to 13.7 km, at times reaching to nearly 380 K potential temperature. Eight measurement campaigns (consisting of a total of 36 flights), distributed over all seasons and typically covering latitudes between 35° N and 75° N in the European longitude sector (10° W?20° E), …
Evidence of small-scale quasi-isentropic mixing in ridges of extratropical baroclinic waves
2019
Abstract. Stratosphere–troposphere exchange within extratropical cyclones provides the potential for anthropogenic and natural surface emissions to rapidly reach the stratosphere as well as for ozone from the stratosphere to penetrate deep into the troposphere, even down into the boundary layer. The efficiency of this process directly influences the surface climate, the chemistry in the stratosphere, the chemical composition of the extratropical transition layer, and surface pollution levels. Here, we present evidence for a mixing process within extratropical cyclones which has gained only a small amount of attention so far and which fosters the transport of tropospheric air masses into the…
Assessment of Observational Evidence for Direct Convective Hydration of the Lower Stratosphere
2020
In situ and remote sensing observations of water vapor are analyzed to assess the evidence for direct convective hydration of the lower stratosphere. We have examined several hundred balloon-borne and airborne in situ measurements of lower stratospheric humidity in the tropics and northern midlatitudes. We find that the tropical lower stratospheric H2O enhancements above the background occur quite infrequently, and the height of the enhancements is within about 1 km of the cold-point tropopause. Following Schwartz et al. (2013, https://doi.org/10.1002/grl.50421), we examine the anomalously high (above 8 ppmv) water vapor mixing ratios retrieved by the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) at 10…
Photochemistry and Non-adiabatic Photodynamics of the HOSO Radical
2021
6 pags., 2 figs.